Current affairs

Peterloo Massacre leaves eleven dead and four hundred wounded as crowds, gathered to hear radical Henry Hunt call for reform of the House of Commons, are forcibly dispersed. Six Acts are passed, stiffening the 1795 Treason Act and introducing a tax on the periodical press which was viewed as seditious.

Art and science

Percy Bysshe Shelley writes Ode to the West Wind during a year of extraordinary creativity in which he also finishes Prometheus Unbound.Lord Byron publishes his tour-de-force Don Juan; one man's mock-epic odyssey through a world without fixed principles. First ship with a steam engine crosses the Atlantic in twenty-eight days.

International

Thomas Jefferson establishes the University of Virginia.Royal Navy anti-slave squadron is set up to patrol the West African coastline.French physician Rene Laennac invents the stethoscope.

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Bysshe Coffey

04 April 2017, 20:15

Dear NPG,

Apologies for the bother but I have spotted an error. This image is listed as having been painted by Clint in 1819. It wasn't. This is indeed by Clint (after Curran and Williams), but it is a painting from around 1829. For reference, see Bieri's recent biography 'Shelley'.

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